Last week I attended the 2010 Business Innovation Factory Collaborative Innovation Summit in Providence, Rhode Island (referred to as BIF-6). There were so many thoughtful presentations that I hesitate to merely highlight a few. After taking a couple days to mull it over I’ve decided to select a few presentations that will be most relevant to the themes I typically write and speak about i.e. leadership, connection, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. Below are brief descriptions of several presentations from the conference. For those who want to hear these or other presentations, you can access them at this link.
Category Archives: Human Value
Individuals, Organizations That Survive Life’s Inevitable Storms
Everyone experiences difficult seasons in life. Although storms come to our lives in many different forms including health problems, death of a loved one, divorce or job loss, one thing is certain: it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get through the stormy seasons in life alone. We need family and friends who “have our backs.” Unfortunately, as this thoughtful article that recently appeared in USA Today suggests, true friendship may be dying.
In a video interview I filmed for the Leader to Leader Institute’s Leadership Dialogues website, I speak with leadership experts Mark Thompson and Bonita Buell-Thompson about what I learned from my wife Katie’s successful battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer. You can read about it and watch the video at this link.
The lesson I learned is about the importance of connection and relationships. It applies to organizations as much as it does to individuals and families. When difficult seasons arrive, an organization’s culture often makes a difference to whether the organization survives or doesn’t. Dog-eat-dog or cultures that are indifferent to people and relationships often spiral down into relational isolation, anxiety, distrust, blame and finger pointing. On the other hand, Connection Cultures that value human beings and relationships tend to pull together and work through the challenges.
My question for you is, who has your back in life and at work? Are you intentional about taking the time to build strong relationships with individuals who you trust and who trust you? If you lead an organization, do you invest time to develop relationship excellence in your organization?
Video Training: Connection Cultures in Churches
Some of you know that in addition to speaking and teaching leadership at organizations such at Google, NASA, Johnson & Johnson and the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, Jason Pankau and I frequently speak in churches about how Judaeo-Christian values lived out create what we refer to as a “Connection Culture.” To learn more, watch the following video series of Jason Pankau teaching a workshop on Connection Cultures for Churches.
Session 1 – The Case for Connection
Session 2 – Creating a Connection Culture
Session 3 – Inspiring Identity
Session 4 – Knowledge Flow
Session 5 – Committed Members and Servant Leaders
US Navy and U2: What Connection?
The US Navy and U2 in the same article! Huh?
That’s right. It’s true. Check it out for yourself.
The Leader to Leader Institute just posted an article on its website that Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Summer edition of the Leader to Leader Journal. The article features the stories of the US Navy’s former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vern Clark, and Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2. The article is about the topic of connecting with “core employees” to boost strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. Here is a link to the article entitled “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.”
Develop Loyalty: Connect with Your Customers
Now for something completely different! InDesign magazine asked me to write an article about what I might do if I owned a jewelry store. I would be following a similar article written by Ivanka Trump (who actually owns a jewelry store).
It should come as no surprise that I immediately saw this as an opportunity to talk about the importance of the force of connection and how it contributes to the success of retail businesses. Here’s a link to the article entitled “If I Owned a Jewelry Store.”
LeaderLab Podcast Interview
Jason Pankau and I were recently guests on LeaderLab’s podcast interviews available online or at iTunes. LeaderLab’s podcasts are hosted by David Burkus. David’s past guests on LeaderLab’s podcasts have included Marshall Goldsmith, Daniel Pink and Steve Farber. Check it out.
The Need to Respect Legitimate Authority and One’s Colleagues
With the recent firing of General McChrystal as commander of American forces in Afghanistan over his insubordination, I thought it would be an ideal time to reproduce here what I wrote in Fired Up or Burned Out about one of the greatest military leaders in history, America’s Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall.
Marshall created a culture that stands in stark contrast to the culture created by General McChrystal as reported in a Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The Runaway General.” Defenders of McChrystal argue he was speaking truth to power. General Marshall was known for speaking truth to power but, unlike McChrystal, he recognized the need to respect legitimate authority and to always be respectful in dealing with the people he interacted with whether they were fellow soldiers, diplomats or representatives of foreign governments.
Because Marshall possessed humility of character, he knew that he was not always right and had to defer to the decisions of his superior in the chain-of-command then put extra effort into executing such decisions. As a result, Marshall had the complete confidence of the leaders he reported to such as General John “Blackjack” Pershing and President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt.
Marshall should be one of the role models all leaders strive to emulate. The title of the chapter I wrote about General Marshall was “Soldier of Peace.” You can read it below.
What U2 and the US Navy Have in Common: Connecting with Core Employees
John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership
Many thanks to Michael Hyatt for featuring my guest post entitled “John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership” on his blog. Michael’s blog was recently recognized and the #1 leadership blog. Not bad considering his day job is CEO of America’s 7th largest trade book publishing company, Thomas Nelson.
John Wooden: What the Obituaries Missed
John Robert Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, died yesterday. He was 99 years old. This morning I read Wooden’s obituaries in The New York Times and the Associated Press and felt they missed important aspects of his story that reflect the essence of the man and his legacy.
I profiled Wooden as a role model who we can all learn from in my book Fired Up or Burned Out. Wooden’s favorite saying was “a life not lived for others is a life not lived.” He said his heroes were his father Joshua Wooden, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa, each of whom lived a life of service to others. In John Wooden’s honor, I’m posting the following excerpts from my book:
Connection and the Legend
So often in life, good things bloom from the seeds of hardship. The personal character of a young teenager who went on to become a great leader was immeasurably shaped during the Depression when his family lost their farm in Indiana. His father’s reaction to the loss was unusual. He wasn’t bitter about it. Instead, his dad focused on the future and told his children that everything would be all right. And it was.
During those impressionable years in this leader’s life, he learned that, like the Depression, some things in life are not in our control. His father taught him that he should always strive to do his best at anything he chose to do and not worry about the outcome. He would later spread that philosophy to countless other.
Another perspective he gained during those formative years was to value people. By watching his mom and dad and hearing the stories of faith they taught him, he learned the joy that came from making people and relationships his focus in life.
The young boy grew up to be an outstanding high school and college basketball player in a state that was rabid about the game. After college he married Nell, the love of his life and the only woman he had ever dated. He taught high school English and coached basketball until 1943 when he enlisted to serve in the Navy during World War II. When he returned from the war to the high school in South Bend, Indiana, where he previously taught, he was offered his old job. Other returning GIs were not, however, and so he refused the offer because he felt it was wrong for the school to deny veterans the jobs they had left to serve their country. Instead, he accepted an offer to become athletic director and head basketball coach at Indiana State Teachers College.
A Caring Coach
For the 1946-47 season Indiana State received a post-season invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) national play-offs. After the coach learned that a young African-American, second-string guard on his team, Clarence Walker, would not be allowed to participate in the tournament because of the color of his skin, he declined the offer.